Blue Gradient with Stamping: June Polish Party

This month for the Polish Party we’re doing gradients. I took the liberty of adding to mine with a bit of stamping though.

The gradient I’ve done is a pale turquoise to mid blue, using Barry M Sugar Apple and Rimmel Blue Eyed Girl. These colours look great together in a gradient, but I couldn’t help but think it needed something extra. So I’ve stamped over it using a floral/leaf image from CICI & SISI 03.

I’ve not had the time these past ten days or so to do my nails with anything more than a plain colour, so the time I took out to do these was a real luxury after such a busy time. My son breaks up from school for the summer at the end of this week though, so that gives me back an extra three hours a day that I won’t be ferrying him to and from school, and I fully intend to spend that extra time catching up on my sleep and painting my nails 🙂

Your nails are utterly gorgeous! I happened onto your blog by way of Pinterest and I’m looking forward to skimming through your ideas.

We’ve got a lot in common (“wrong side” of 45, started polishing our nails and it became an obsession….). I’m wondering, since you do a mani every couple of days, what are you using on your nails to keep them moisturized? Since I hit a certain age, I find that my nails chip and peel when they never have before. Appreciate the advice.

Hi Gwenne. Thanks very much for your comment. I do a few things to help keep my nails in as good a condition as possible. Although I do suffer with flaky nails, and the corners, especially on my right hand, are rarely intact!

I use cuticle oil about three times a day. I mainly make my own, but I also have shop-bought bottles that I use too. Then I moisturise my hands twice a day, making sure to rub some of it into and around my cuticles. I just use an Aveeno moisturiser.

Keeping my nails polished all the time has helped them to grow and to flake and chip far less. And I usually wear a base coat of clear gel polish, which is harder and helps protect them a bit more.

I avoid getting my nails wet, except for showering and washing my hands. So gloves are a must when cleaning. And I religiously stick to the “treat your nails like jewels not tools” adage.

I find the best thing though is to make sure I’m drinking enough water. I don’t succeed at that very often – it’s a real weakness of mine!

About me

I'm Claire Kerr and I'm a UK nails blogger. I've only been addicted to nail polish since 2012. Some kind of mid-life crisis turned me from a tomboy into a girly girl!

I had been posting pics of my manicures to Facebook, really as a way of documenting them for myself, but I was filling up my timeline with the photos and most of my friends weren't interested. So I started this blog instead!